Jarryd Hardner

RMIT Communication Design | GRAP 2199

[jarrydhardner]

Reflective Statement:

This will be the last post for this Tumblr, reflecting on the duration of Communication Design Studies (GRAP2199) this semester.

My personal objective for this course was to explore new and unique ways of designing, particularly in relation to the assessments. I felt I achieved this goal, partly due to the enormous depth and range of the topics covered in the lectures and workshops.

Design movements like Bauhaus and Memphis really resonated in the lectures, as I discovered a depth to their work in how they influenced design today. I also really enjoyed the insight into other cultures development of communication (such as the Diamond Sutra and Bì Shēng) as I only had an understanding of western culture previously.

The workshop skills of collage & zine-making were very useful and fun, especially contrasting with the theory aspect of the lectures for a more “hands-on” experience. I discovered a lot about layout and composition through these tasks, which I feel influenced how I think about design now.

Overall, this course has strengthened my connection with design, expanded my knowledge, and forced me to challenge myself. Thank-you to Karen and Andy for providing a very detailed, refined and thorough look into Communication Design Studies.

[jarrydhardner]

What I Took Away From The Lectures - Week 9 - 12:

These reflection posts are aimed at covering what I found interesting or most valuable during the lectures in Communication Design Studies. These final lectures explored post-modernism, advertising culture and the future of design.

- The changing affect of design with the introduction of the computer, and postmodern theory.

- How design can influence social change, and the advertising culture’s effect on consumerism.

- How to deal with the endless flow of visual material, and the unsettling future design may bring.

- Everything we have learnt in these lectures thus far, and everything that the future may hold for me.

Sources (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right)

Raygun Magazine - David Carson

How to Work Better - Fischli & Weiss

Public Face - Julius Von Bismarck, Benjamin Maus & Richard Wilhelmer

Everything will be OK - Karen ann Donnachie & Andy Simionato

[jarrydhardner]

What I Took Away From The Lectures - Week 5 - 8:

These reflection posts are aimed at covering what I found interesting or most valuable during the lectures in Communication Design Studies. These middle lectures focused on the evolution of typography, how it was studied, and it’s impact on a global scale.

- Different methods of printing type, and how the drastically changed the development of communication.

- How design and mathematics can work together, and their influence on the written letter.

- That simple design can be beautiful, and endure throughout the ages based on it’s influence.

- That “The future demands the whole person”.

Sources (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right)

Fichier d’origine - Jost Amman

Romain Du Roi - Royal Print Office

das Bauhaus Schachspiel - Josef Hartwig

Sport Makes Appetite - László Moholy-Nagy

[jarrydhardner]

What I Took Away From The Lectures - Week 1 - 4:

These reflection posts are aimed at covering what I found interesting or most valuable during the lectures in Communication Design Studies. In the beginning weeks, we explored a critical way of looking at design through historical, social and cultural contexts.

- The relationship between our body and communication, and how it plays an integral part of how we respond to the world around us.

- The evolution of present day typography, and how it has developed and adapted from the beginnings of written language 60,000 years ago.

- The creativity of craft an artist’s has when it comes to expressing a message, and how audiences respond individually.

- The cultural significance of script and calligraphy, and how it evolved independently through different parts of the world.

Sources (Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right)

Supplemento al Dizionario Italiano - Bruno Munari

Deitch Projects, Banana Wall - Sagmeister & Walsh

Fluxkit (Fluxus edition) - George Maciunas

Painting of Fuxi - Guo Xu

[jarrydhardner]

Assessment 2: Ask Me Anything

This project featured an interview with Canadian composer Kris Maddigan, known for his work in the 2017 video game, Cuphead. The game was heavily inspired by the animation of the 1930′s, and emulates their subversive and surrealist qualities. Maddigan wrote and composed over 4 hours of music for the soundtrack, including various styles such as swing, big band and ragtime.

The process of creating the vinyl and it’s sleeve was challenging, but also highly rewarding. The cover art features a hand-drawn illustration of mine, featuring myself and Maddigan flying in a propeller plane (a vehicle used in the game). This was coloured in Photoshop, as I discovered through research that this was the same process the developers of the game used for their animation. The back design was set out compositionally like an actual record, using the Q&A’s of the interview to serve as the song titles and their lyrics. The vinyl sleeve was then assembled to the right specifications.

Overall, I am happy with the presentation of the project to reflect my chosen creative. What started out as a slightly daunting assessment resulted in a unique and fun way to conduct an interview. Being a big fan of the game, it was an enjoyable creative experience to work in the style of Cuphead, and I am grateful to Kris for allowing me to have a deeper understanding of this format.

[jarrydhardner]

Assessment Two: Development Work

[jarrydhardner]

Assessment Two: Typography Inspiration

Sources: Sigarette Motassian - Erberto Carboni (1932) Betty Boop: Morning, Noon and Night - Fleischer Studios (1933) Bifur Typeface - AM Cassandre (1929)

[jarrydhardner]

Assessment Two: Audio Inspiration

Source: Studio MDHR (2017)

Music composed by Kristofer Maddigan, Conducted by John Herberman

[jarrydhardner]

Assessment Two: Visual Inspiration

Source: Cuphead, Studio MDHR (2017)

[jarrydhardner]

Week 10 - Prototype

[hunjlee]

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Examples from our Week 7 workshop.

[jarrydhardner]

Week 10: Why Design?

Week 10′s Lecture covered a range of important historical designs, and how they have influenced the world today. This included symbolic designs such as the Peace symbol, activism designers like Barbara Kruger, as well as modern advertisement like Colors Magazine. The lecture ended with thought-provoking responses to controversial advertisements and how they are used in a modern context.

Prototyping & Mockups were the focus on this weeks workshop task, which led to a very hands-on experience creating ‘franken-models’ as described by Federico Ferretti. This was a very relaxing and insightful task that would ultimately help with the construction of our next assessment.

[jarrydhardner]

Week 9: Collage

Workshop class this week consisted of using collage to create a zine. For this task, Vinny, Euan, Hun and I worked together to create 8 artworks that could be included in our Zine. Each team member used shapes and letters from magazines to create their artwork, which we then compiled into a single A3 page for printing. We photocopied a number of editions, which we all got to keep at the end of the activity.

This was a really interesting task in terms of layout and composition. With each member of the group creating their artwork separately, it was fun to combine them all together to create this one, singular Zine. The examples of artists M/M Paris and Sergei Sviatchenko inspired us to create these interesting collages, and I am pretty proud of our group for the end result.

[jarrydhardner]

Week 7/8: Paper

The two lectures for Week 7-8 covered the Bauhaus School of Design, and it’s founder Walter Gropius. It was such an incredibly inspiring movement, which was evident in how it has influenced modern day design. We explored the different artists, curriculum and studies from the Bauhaus School and how they are still used today. Examples of Typographic style were shown, which linked back to previous lectures, and how layout and page design was used effectively in this movement.

The workshop for Week 7 involved us going around campus and taking photos of various objects that had a resemblance to letters. Our aim was to combine all the 26 letters into an alphabet, and our group got pretty close to finding an example of all of them. Unfortunately, we used Hun’s phone for this task, so I do not have an example to post.

For week 8, we begun working with paper to create basic Zines. This was a very hands-on task, as we explored folding, binding, trimming and writing on paper. Having never made a Zine, it was interesting to mentally work out the pagination of a Zine and how it would be represented in its final form.

[jarrydhardner]

Week 6: (ノ°Д°）ノ︵

Friday’s lecture covered the origins of page-space and the development of grids in early typography. There were several useful visual examples from early typographers like Torniello or mathematicians like Pacioli, which showed how applying geometic specifications to letters resulted in how we use modern typefaces today. This lecture really resonated with me, as it was very interesting to explore the history of something I use every day without realising.

Workshop this week dedicated to creating typefaces our of geometric shapes. We started with one basic coloured shape to create our letters, which then evolved to two, and then three. It was a challenge at the beginning to get accurate looking letters, but as more elements were introduced, it ultimately resulted in some interesting visuals. Our group worked effectively with the division of letters assigned to us, and it was great to see how other groups created very different and unique typefaces to us using similar shapes.

[jarrydhardner]

Week 5: Group Exhibition.

This weeks lecture covered the first printed books in history, with examples of movable type and woodblock printing. We explored blackletter and how it has been used in history, and saw examples of incunabula books. The main point of this lecture was covering Johannes Gutenberg, the German blacksmith who was one of the first people to use movable type to create the Gutenberg Printing Press. 

Being the first week after our assessments were due, our workshop class involved us organising a pop-up exhibition in small groups. We decided to utilize the escalators in the main building as a unique way to showcase our artworks. This led to members of the public being able to observe our work without taking time out of what they were doing.

I feel our group handled this task very well. It created an interactive experience with our audience without being to overt. It was interesting also to see how so many of my classmates had dramatically different approaches to the assessment, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone’s final piece.

[jarrydhardner]

The Five Boxing Wizards

Pangram from Week 4.